Multiplying and Dividing Rational Numbers

Objective:
Students will be able to multiply and divide positive and negative rational numbers.

Standards:
7.NS.A.2c
7.NS.A.3
MP1
MP3
MP6

Subject(s):
Math

60 minutes

1 Launch -
5 minutes

Opener: As students enter the room, they will immediately pick up and begin working on the opener. Please see my instructional strategy clip for how openers work in my classroom (Instructional Strategy - Process for openers). This method of working and going over the opener lends itself to allow students to construct viable arguments and critique the reasoning of others, which is mathematical practice 3.

Learning Target: After completion of the opener, I will address the day’s learning targets to the students. In today’s lesson, the intended target is, “I can multiply and divide rational numbers.” Students will jot the learning target down in their agendas (our version of a student planner, there is a place to write the learning target for every day).

For my openers, I try to continually spiral in previous material, so that information is not lost or forgotten. For this opener, the first two problems are unit rate problems - the second onecontains the word "per" and is more obviously a unit rate problem. Students were able to easily solve the second problem, but struggled a bit with the first. Not only did the first problem not contain the word per, but it required students to compare paint to walls, not walls to paint as the order of delivery of facts in the problem might suggest. Proportional reasoning is a major work of the 7th grade, and we spent an entire nine weeks on that strand of the common core - I will certainly continue to practice PR questions during opener time, and I will make sure that not all questions are obvious in what they are asking.

Multiplying and Dividing Rational Numbers Puzzle: To continue practice with both signed decimals and fractions, students will complete a puzzle worksheet at their tables. The sheet covers both positive and negative fractions and decimals, as students need time to work with both in order to build fluency. I will walk around and give assistance as necessary; most likely I will end up sitting with the lowest group to get them going! This sheet will become homework if it is not finished in class. It will continue to be very important for students to pay close attention to signs and integers rules, as precision will make all the difference in a right or wrong answer (mathematical practice 6).

Instructional Strategy - Table Discussion To summarize this lesson, I am going to have students have a table discussion to recap the rules for performing the four operations on rational numbers. I will walk around and listen in, and then I will call on 4 tables to share out – one for each operation.